


Serbia

by bluegrassbaby



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Boys Kissing, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22565164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluegrassbaby/pseuds/bluegrassbaby
Summary: Mycroft's proposed mission brings to light a discussion about feelings and the future between our two favorite characters.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Serbia

John’s steps thudded on the stairs as he lugged three bulky bags of groceries up to 221B. He arrived at a door slightly ajar and concluded that they had a visitor before he heaved himself through it, nearly tumbling into the sitting room. He had barely caught his breath, irritably wishing that Sherlock would help with the shopping just ONCE, before looking up to find a very tense conversation taking place. Mycroft Holmes, clad in an impeccable gray suit, sat primly at edge of John’s own chair, across from Sherlock. That, in itself, wasn’t unusual at all, as he visited Baker Street fairly frequently these days. More alarming was the haunted pallor on his flatmate’s face. Sherlock was slumped and staring, looked as if he had just seen a ghost. John nearly dropped the groceries, but managed to set them down on the spot and took a step toward his friend.

“Sherlock, are you alright?” Sherlock didn’t look up at him, his gaze distracted and distant as he murmured. 

“Yes, fine.” John could see that things were by no means fine.

“What’s happening here?” His instinctive gut reaction to the fear in Sherlock’s expression made his own tone guarded and terse.

“Nothing that concerns you, John,” Mycroft dismissed him. “Oughtn’t you put away the milk?” John glared at him, not moving a muscle. Mycroft continued the discussion as if he were no longer there, 

“It’s not like last time at all, Sherlock. This is a small cell, and they just arrived in Serbia. It’ll be a quick, in and out operation….we just haven’t located them yet. That’ll be your sole assignment. Once you have coordinates, we will deploy another team. It would be two weeks, max.” Rage boiled in John’s stomach, turning his jaw and his fists into knots.

“Serbia?! You’re not sending him to Serbia again, Mycroft! Do you know what he went through last time? Have you seen his back?” The doctor’s body had gone rigid, his face stony with rage. Sherlock leaned forward, lowering his head into his hands, threading his fingers into his hair. John’s gaze darted between the two of them, but no one would make eye contact with him. 

“I extracted him, John, I know well what he went through,” Mycroft said quietly. John gave a mirthless laugh. 

“Well then you know well that you should’ve extracted him sooner. He still speaks in Serbian in his dreams, Mycroft!” John nearly spit the man’s name in disgust. In his peripheral vision, he registered Sherlock suddenly raising his head in surprise. John mentally kicked himself for revealing that personal bit of Sherlock’s life to his brother (aka arch enemy), but he would risk anything to prevent Sherlock from returning to Eastern Europe. Their lives had come to a peaceful balance in the past 6 months. John and Rosie had moved back to Baker Street, fitting themselves in and around Sherlock’s erratic life. Sherlock still took cases and John assisted when not at the surgery. Rosie was happy and thriving with a fairly regular routine of day care, home time with the two of the them, and some nights spent with Mrs. Hudson and Aunt Molly. John and Sherlock were closer than ever, their friendship mended and improved. John was loathe to jeopardize their current situation. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing Sherlock again. He would be unable to go through that twice in one lifetime. Just the thought made him feel as if he were plunging from a cliff. 

“John, this is Sherlock’s decision,” Mycroft said quietly. 

“I value his opinion,” Sherlock sharply retorted, speaking for the first time since John had entered the room. The detective finally met the gaze of his best friend and he easily read the raw emotion in the doctor’s eyes—fear for him, fear for them. Fear of losing everything they had built. The intensity of the sentiment nearly overwhelmed them both—Sherlock stood abruptly and stepped to the window, his expression shielded and indiscernible but his shattered eyes revealed jagged memories and a hint of panic. John dropped his head, stripped of his anger, voice rough. 

“Well, you know how I feel about it. I can’t lose him again, Mycroft.” He spoke to the elder Holmes, but his eyes were on the back of the younger. “It broke me the first time. And now, it’s not just me. We’re a family.” His throat was tight. There was no way he was going to be emotional in front of Mycroft and there was nothing more he could do, anyway. It was Sherlock’s decision, after all. He quickly stepped over the abandoned groceries, flew down the stairs and fled 221B. 

He walked aimlessly for about twenty minutes before finding himself in the park, staring at the lake. The air was crisp and cool, but sunny patches offered warm respite for walking mothers with busy toddlers, elderly couples and the occasional runner. John took deep, slow breaths, hopelessly trying to fill the chasm of emptiness in his gut. His heart ached with the thought of Sherlock’s absence, the thought of the detective returning to the very place that traumatized him, being captured, tortured again…perhaps not making it back this time. Every time he forced that last thought from his mind, it slammed back in, nearly taking him down each time. He closed his eyes against the onslaught of images—Sherlock in chains, Sherlock being whipped, Sherlock’s grave, Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock…..

As if summoned, the detective appeared next to him. How Sherlock always found him, he’d never know. But John knew that he always would. 

“John,” he began quietly, urgently, with relief in his tone. “I’m not going.” John felt something crack open inside of himself. His breath released like a burst balloon with tears streaming from his eyes. He dropped his head into his hands, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, chest heaving as he desperately tried to hold it together. He felt Sherlock slide his arms around him and pull him close. The detective’s breath caught in his chest and he held John tightly in a tremulous grip.  


“I’m not leaving you and Rosie,“ he rasped into his doctor’s hair. “I told Mycroft to fuck off.” John barked out a slightly giddy laugh at Sherlock’s use of profanity. He used it so infrequently that when he did, it held so much more weight. And if ever there was a perfect time to apply it, this was it. After a moment, he stepped back, sniffing and clearing his face with his sleeve.

“Good,” he said. “He deserves it.” 

“Hmm,” Sherlock said with a smile. “He doesn’t truly wish to see me hurt. He really didn’t have a full appreciation for how….” Sherlock swallowed, looking away before finishing, “how much Serbia had affected me. He extracted me, had medical care araranged for me and then I returned to Baker Street immediately. He didn’t see the…non-physical consequences. I thought I effectively concealed that from everybody. I didn’t know that you were aware of my dreams,” he admitted quietly, gazing at a family of ducks waddling to the lake.

“I heard you in your room, when I came down for some water, when I couldn’t sleep myself. When you were napping on the couch. One time on a train. I know nightmares when I see them, Sherlock. I’m kind of an expert.”

“How did you….did you wake me? I don’t remember.” John slid a hand into Sherlock’s, caressing the top of his hand gently with his thumb. 

“Like that,” he responded quietly, “A hand in your hair often helped. It never fully woke you, it just calmed you a bit.” The detective’s eyes closed and he nodded. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. John gazed unabashedly at his friend’s features, his hand still in the detective’s. 

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said quietly, “You’ve done the same for me.” 

“I want to be here for you and Rosie. I want to be here when she learns to talk and learns to read and when she does her first experiment,” his words slipped from him as if by accident, as if he hadn’t planned on saying them. John watched him swallow nervously, looking slightly surprised and love for the man filled him and spilled over into a smile as warm as the autumn afternoon sun. It emboldened the detective. “I want to be here to see all of these turn silver,” he said deliberately, carefully, as he reached up with his free hand and gently touched John’s remaining golden strands. 

“Good,” John answered, feeling breathless and inarticulate with emotion, “Yes.” He closed his eyes briefly, overwhelmed, his mind whirling. Sherlock stilled, hoping this wasn’t too much, that he wasn’t ruining this precious thing that they were cultivating.

“OK?” he asked hesitantly. 

“Yes, I’m just….” John tugged his hand. “Let’s walk home. I think better when I’m moving.” Sherlock’s lips quirked up and John left his fingers tangled gently in his detective’s as they slowly walked toward the edge of the green lawn, to where the bustling sidewalk would take them back to Baker Street. 

“You beat me to it.” John said, seemingly apropos of nothing. 

“To what?” Sherlocked asked, his voice at an octave that cut through the daytime clatter of the street, a pitch that John felt in his chest. 

“To raising the conversation about long term plans. I was going to ask if you minded if….” He pulled his hand from Sherlock’s and raked it over the back of his neck anxiously. Sherlock stopped walking and looked curiously at him. 

“If?” he prompted gently. 

“If our current arrangement became permanent. If….if Rosie and I could just stay at Baker Street. I have---hm” abruptly, John cleared his throat, averting his gaze back to the park they just left. “We have everything we need. I have no plans to look for other arrangements…..or other relationships.” He added the last in a quick mumble, cursing the heat he felt rising in his cheeks. 

Realization dawned on the detective’s face and his eyes widened. 

“John.” He made the letters of his name sound like a prayer. “Nothing would make me happier than you and Rosie staying permanently.” John gave a small sigh of relief. Although, the corollary of that statement, the relationship part, was not yet addressed. 

“I know you didn’t sign up for this, Sherlock, for raising a child, for housing a broken soldier and his broken life—” The detective lifted his hand and gently placed the pad of his thumb against John’s lips, stopping his monologue. His fingers then drifted, feather-light over the doctor’s jaw.

“I did sign up for this. I signed up for it the day you walked into the lab at Bart’s. I signed up for anything and everything that involves being a part of your life. It’s an honor to help you raise your daughter, John Watson.” He had drifted closer to John, their hands linked again. They stood at the edge of the park, in view of the busy street, but John didn’t see anything but the heat in Sherlock’s gaze. He didn’t hear anything but the low timbre of his voice. “And if there’s anything else you want from me, it’s yours. Anything. All that I am, all that I have is already yours.” John forgot how to breathe, filled with awe and fear. How did he deserve the love of this amazing man? 

“Sherlock, I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never had this with a man before, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a healthy relationship with anyone before—” Sherlock once again stopped his speech once again, this time by leaning in, slowly inhaling his doctor’s scent as he whispered against the shell of his ear,

“We’ll figure it out. It’s not the most difficult thing we’ve been through together, and we’re still here.” 

Goosebumps chased each other down his arms at the thrill of Sherlock’s breath against his neck. His words, though, relieved some of his anxiety. The detective’s arms embraced him quickly before he murmured, “C’mon. Let’s go home. We can talk more there.”

They walked home slowly, fingers brushing, shoulders bumping. 

“Sherlock?” 

“Hm?” He looked down at the doctor as they waited at an intersection for a light to change. John began haltingly, unsure of his words,

“I—we….I don’t want to mess this up, y’know? Because it’s us, and without us, I have—I have nothing. I mean… you know that I love you, right? You must’ve deduced that by now. You are a genius, after all.” Sherlock’s world stopped. His brain stopped processing outside stimuli and was consumed with only one thought. John Watson loved him. John Watson loved HIM. He stared so long that they nearly missed the walk signal. A few people moved impatiently past them and John began to feel quite awkward and more than a little panicky. “It’s ok, I mean, if it’s too much or too soon to say something like that, you don’t have to feel the same way, I just—” Sherlock suddenly grabbed his hand, dragged him across the street at the last moment and doubled their pace. They were approaching 221B. “OK,” muttered John. A few minutes later, after nervously fishing in his pocket, John was attempting to insert the key with shaky fingers when the detective suddenly wrapped his arms tightly around his waist from behind, burying his face in his neck and humming out a sigh. John reached back with his free hand, cupping the back of Sherlock’s neck, keeping him close as he released a relieved breath and said, “So you’re not mad, then? I was afraid—“. 

“I love you, too,” the detective said in a deep rumble into his neck. “Now open that door so I can show you how much.” The doctor laughed aloud as they stumbled through the door, their lips finding each other quickly, just in time to shut the door before they wrapped around each other like vines.


End file.
